#or gollum from that one game

[virichemia]

him angy

[thefirstknife]

New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.

About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."

So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.

You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.

Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:

Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.

Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.

Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:

In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.

"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!

Bloomberg article in full:

Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2. Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting. Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall. The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product. In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up. But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment. Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts. Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month. The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office. TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.” PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign. Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.

[n0ahsferatu]

omg i’ve been a fan of yours for year now and as an artist i need to know.

what do you listen to while you draw???

for me it’s super varied but i’m always fascinated by other’s processes!!! 

also just. i love your art so much. followed you bc of ds9 art and i’ve loved everything since. even shit idk anything abt. i just love your art man

hi anon :) aaa well! i have a hard time working in complete silence so when I draw I usually have a movie/show playing in the background or I'm listening to music! my go-to genres are darkwave, coldwave and post-punk, but I also have a soft spot for both classic and modern rock and i occasionally listen to movie soundtracks as well. when I'm sketching an illustration I like putting on something that fits the vibes of what I'm drawing to help me get inspired!

OH and i almost forgor but long form video essays are absolute life-savers as well

also thank you so much skdvjkfbnk this is very kind of you to say 🥺 I haven't starred my trek in a bit but the ds9 fandom on here was an absolute godsend for my depressed burnt out ass back in 2022 and there's stuff that I drew back then that I'd love to rework a bit someday! and tbh I'm due for a ds9 rewatch soon i think

anyway thank you again anon I hope you have a lovely day :)

[youvejustbeen-quattroed]

i will NOT hear you out-

Okay hear me out--

[probablybadrpgideas]

Social Outcasts By Species

Humans: Me :(

Dwarves: Okkut, who's great grandfather once said a slur near the great grandfather of the current king, according to general historical consensus. To the shun mine!

Halflings: You'd think it would be Gollum, but nope, that's a hobbit. Common mistake. It's Mullog, a legally distinct little freak man who lives in a hole.

Gnomes: Ramblestarp, the one gnome accountant trying to manage the prank budget. It's very hard because half the receipts are pranks and the other half are squirrels.

Dragonborn: Aldek. She's descended from one of those weird 2nd edition dragons who never got ported into the later games, so she doesn't have her racial features yet. Hopefully the next supplement will retcon her parents back into existence.

Goblins: Surprise! It's Ramblestarp again.

Orcs: Deathblood The Butcher, Scourge Of The Seven Kingdoms, Ravager Of The Holy And Unholy Lands, Bringer Of Despair To All Lands He Walks Within, He Whose Hands Run Red With The Blood Of Orphans. The guy's just trying way too hard. We all know for a fact you've never been to either the Holy or the Unholy lands. Dial it back a bit, for Gruumsh's sake.

Elves: The fucking Onceler. No, no, hear me out, he's a weird twink who just appears in the woods one day and dedicates his life to destroying nature and angering the fae. It makes so much sense...

[abigmessofablog]

I'm sure I'm probably not the first person to note this but the reason so many works derivative of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings fails to capture the magic of those works is the lack of the hobbityness

Tolkien was, obviously, entirely aware of he common fantasy and fairytale tropes he was playing off of and they're present in his work (placing the proper king on the throne, elves and dwarves, main character who's hesitant to start his heros journey, dragons, ext) but if need be, these elements will be sidelined to emphasize the Hobbitish philosophy about the importance of comfort and good food and so on and so forth. (Thorin's death speech, Frodo's "I can't recall the taste of food, nor the touch of grass" ext)

Warning; super long, barely readable meta rant written at 2AM below

I've seen people say in any other story, Aragorn would be the main character of LOTR and I can agree with that but I'd argue you can kinda say the same thing about Thorin. Aragorn has his whole "rightful king" plot not dissimilar to how Thorin has his "reclaim the homeland, fight the dragon" plot. In the movies our emotional involvement in Aragorn and Thorin gets beefed up a little as they get some more brooding to the both of them. Aragorn gets his angst over his ancestry, Thorin is taken more seriously (ie: his updated, much more dramatic introduction giving him an air of mystery vs his book introduction, movie Balin's speech about his loyalty to Thorin, the treatment of the whole "gold sickness" thing, Thorin's speeches being taken seriously rather than being lovingly made fun of by the narration, ext) You can easily see a version of these stories where these two kings are the main characters of the story but they aren't! but neither of these characters are our main characters. Frodo and Bilbo are, respectively. And Frodo and Bilbo are simple hobbits with simple likes and the desire to live their simple shire life before getting dragged into adventure by the narrative.

I do genuinely like that in the Hobbit movies Bilbo gets to decide to go on the adventure by himself instead of getting unceremoniously shoved out of the house by Gandalf. It gives him more agency and we get the fun adventure that is supposed to take Bilbo out of his shell. Thats the message most people took from the story (ie "the world is not in your books..." I love this message/interpretation as much as anyone to be clear. I'm very guilty of loving my "Bilbo stays in Erebor" fanworks) but it is worth noting that Bilbo returns back to the Shire after his adventure and he gets the big speech about how more people should value the simple things in life before Thorin dies. Bilbo positions himself as sort of an unconventional hero by modern standards. Bilbo gets out of his situations more often than not through his wit and cleverly talking his way out of it rather than any displays of strength. He talks his way around Smaug, he cheats at his game of riddles with Gollum, he stalls the trolls. Bilbo wasn't even awake for the big climatic battle that gets turned into a climax for one of the movies. Bilbo, while getting braver more capable and more accepting of the situation, is still a hobbit! He wants his home and hearth and if he is dragged on an adventure, he will very loudly let you know about it. Frodo is similar in the sense that his strength doesn't come from any physical strength but from his ability to shoulder the horrors™ and then accept help from the people around him (mainly Sam) because he shouldn't have to shoulder the horrors™ alone. Again, the entire time Frodo is going on his adventure he's thinking about how much he'd rather be home. Sam sort of acts like this beacon of what the home represents and he’s the only thing keeping him emotionally stable and tries to comfort him through keeping him tethered to those memories of home. There’s the obvious scenes where Sam straight up tells Frodo to imagine home but there’s also just things like Sam cooking and insisting on making sure Frodo is fed (please note that sharing food is basically the universal signal for closeness, domesticity and the idea of a family unit. Think Norman Rockwell) or them turning their traumatic events into stories that they (again mostly Sam) expect to tell to their family and friends in a very domestic setting and then have those stories be passed down in the “Samwise the brave”, “Frodo wouldn’t have made it far without Sam” scene

You can also use this theme to sort of track the change in tone between the two stories. Bilbo's craving for the simple comforts of a warm meal, his bookshelves and a comfortable are played for jokes a few times, it's ultimately validated by the narrative. Frodo's drive to get back home is ultimately very melancholic and downright heartwrenching and when he can finally go home, it's not the same. In Bilbos case this change is sort of implied through the way Bilbo is treated very differently and treated like the neighborhood crazy guy by his peers post-adventure and this is played for laughs mostly but with Frodo it's outright stated and it is played completely straight. He's been so traumatized, so changed by his journey that he's simply not the same person he was when he left and he struggles to enjoy the aspects of the home that were previously used as an attempt to comfort him. Hence, “the Shire has been saved, but not for me." And he ends up leaving the Shire for good. As much as we know Tolkien hated the war allegory, it does bring to mind a soldier coming back home with severe trauma.

I feel like so much of this is lost in works that try to emulate LOTR and The Hobbit because of the simple fact that action sells much better. I mean, that's why the third hobbit movie is called "The Battle of The Five Armies" isn't it? There's also the want for grimmer, darker stories, since so many people view those as more "realistic" Maybe it's just the result of more cynical creators and audiences who want to watch more of the killing the dragon and cool battles with the big armies and less of the writing about trees and the value of home. I dunno I'm tired

[a-leg-without-fear]

Reading to Each Other 🪻

day one of tuna tober y'all!! i'm SO fricking excited! :D

Ship: Duke Leopold Mountbatten x f!Reader

Rating: 13+

Wordcount: 1.3k

Warnings: lots of LOTR, tobacco mention, riddles, kissing, cuddles

Series: Leg's Tuna Tober

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. Rain pattered on your apartment's windows, the occasional roll of thunder booming outside. The spiced scent of your pumpkin candle floated through the living room air. Warm light shone from shaded lamps positioned on either end of your green-clothed sofa. A thick, soft blanket was draped over your lap.

You held your worn copy of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Images of a dark cave filled with still water and an eerie sense of calm floated from the yellowed pages. Sounds of whispered riddles and shaking hands holding shining jewelry bounced around inside your head. It was nearly impossible to read Tolkien and not get entirely engrossed.

"How's your book?" Leo asked from the other end of the couch.

You nearly jumped out of your skin. Your head snapped up from where you'd been hunched over your book, eyes wide, as you met Leo's amused gaze. A light laugh filtered through his bright smile.

"Sorry! Didn't mean to alarm you," he said, amusement clearly indicating that he wasn't sorry in the slightest. You shook your head and sighed at his antics.

"Uh huh. Sure," you groused with a growing smile.

Leo was equally curled up on his side of the sofa. Fluffy blanket draped across his lap, glasses fitted over his thin nose, copy of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen balanced in one of his hands. Hazel eyes trailed over the "grumpy" expression you'd forced over your face.

"Anything interesting standing out so far?" he asked, nodding to the book still clutched in your hands.

"I'm at one of my favorite parts, if that's what you mean," you replied as you burrowed deeper into the couch cushions. Leo tucked his bookmark into his novel, then set the book and his glasses on the end table nearest him.

"Care to elaborate?" he pressed with a cocked eyebrow. You bit your lip as you scanned over the pages again. Hisses and riddles and splashes of ground water leapt from the ink. Hmm. Riddles.

"Well, this part is about Bilbo bargaining, with a creature named Gollum, for his life. They're exchanging riddles as a sort of game," you explained, trying your best to not confuse a man who'd never heard of the Lord of the Rings.

"And what riddles are they?" Leo asked with a growing smile. He crossed his legs under his blanket to give you his undivided attention. You glanced between him and the book in your hands.

"You want to try and solve the riddles, or do you want me to read the whole part?"

"Just the riddles," he specified. You hummed in response.

"Alright, just know that they can get pretty tricky," you said in a singsong manner. Leo stared at you with apt interest as you turned to the correct page in your book. Inked words flew past your eyes, descriptions of swords and hobbits and tobacco and goblins filling your mind, nearly sucking you back into the story, before you found the first riddle. You cleared your throat and read, "What has roots as nobody sees, is taller than trees, up, up it goes, and yet never grows?"

"Has to be a mountain, isn't it?" Leo guessed almost immediately. He seemed rather confident in his answer, dimples digging into his cheeks with how wide his smile had stretched.

"Yup. Mountain," you answered, already thinking of which riddle to do next. Do you be nice and keep giving him the easier ones, or kick it up a notch? He did invent the elevator, after all.

"Give us a harder one, love," he said. That decides it for you, then.

"It cannot be seen, cannot be felt. Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, ends life, kills laughter."

Leo blew out a long stream of air, "When I said hard, I didn't mean that hard!"

You refrained from making the obvious joke brewing at the back of your throat. An involuntary giggle leaked from your lips. You tried to play it off by resting your chin in your hand, fingers digging into your lips, to keep yourself quiet.

The room was quiet for a few moments as Leo considered the riddle. Raindrops trailed down the window, rivulets chasing each other and creating long tails that winded up the glass. This Sunday, utterly serene in its quality, was one of many you'd gotten to experience with Leo. Something about him just garnered peace in your life.

"Do I get a hint?" he asked with a sigh. You grinned at him from under your fingers.

"If Bilbo doesn't get a hint, neither do you," you said. Leo groaned, leaning back on the sofa and throwing an arm over his face. You couldn't help the laugh that breezed between your fingers.

"You are undeniably cruel," he grumbled under his arm.

"You wanted a harder riddle," you replied with a shrug. Leo grunted in return, making you laugh again. You waited a few more moments, letting him agonize over the riddle, before you decided to take pity, "What is it when your eyes are closed?"

"The hell are you on about? Is this a part two to the riddle?" Leo groused.

The blanket in your lap pooled into a pile on the floor as you crawled across the couch. Your sweatpants-clad legs framed Leo's hips, your hands running up his sides, as you sat in his lap. He begrudgingly lowered his arm and met your eyes.

"That was a clue. What do you see when you close your eyes?" you repeated as you ran your palms up and down his forearms. Leo's expression softened slightly.

"A spot of mercy," he said, smile returning, "I was wrong in labeling you cruel."

"Yeah yeah, Mr.1876. Just answer the damn riddle," you said as you rolled your eyes. Leo's warm palms found their usual place on your hips.

"You can't see it, feel it, hear it, or smell it. And closing my eyes has something to do with it," he listed, tongue darting across his bottom lip. A few more moments filled with pondering passed.

"For god's sake," you breathed as you clapped your hand over his eyes. The two of you had been together for so long that the action had hardly surprised him. You waited for a moment in hope that this obvious clue would help. Being met with only silence, you said, "What do you see right now?"

"Your hand, for one," Leo quipped back. He flinched with a laugh when you pinched him with your free hand.

"Close your frickin' eyes, Leo."

Silence settled over the two of you. Warm, comfortable, charged with amusement at your situation. Only Leo's smile could be seen from under your hand. His thumbs tucked under the hem of your t-shirt.

"It's dark," he finally said. You gave him a few moments to connect the dots. A gasp shook his chest, "Dark! That's the answer!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!" you exclaimed as you dropped your hand from his eyes.

Pure elation crinkled in the corners of his hazel eyes. He hugged you closer to his chest, a laugh shaking where your bodies met. You couldn't help but join in. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders to steady yourself.

"Do I get a prize for so effortlessly solving the riddle?" Leo asked with a hint of sarcasm after the two of you had calmed a bit.

"I'm deducting points for the use of a hint," you hummed, feigning consideration at his question.

"And those points, will they affect the prize I know I've earned?"

You answered his question by pressing your lips to his. Both smiling, both clinging to the other with absolute adoration, the occasional giggle buzzing between you.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. It was raining outside, your candle had burnt down to the wick, and you were cradled in Leo's lap as you both read your respective books. Your back to his chest, blanket draped over both of your laps, his cheek rested on the crown of your head. Every now and then you'd read a part of your book aloud, garnering the same in return from Leo.

AHHHHHHHHH this is so frickin cute i might CRY!!! happy tuna tober everyone!!!

taglist: @just-a-nightdreamer @venomqueen2002 @c1eepypas1a @www-interludeshadow-com

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[novelmonger]

I am now (finally) embarking on the last of the LotR audio commentaries I never listened to before: the Production/Post-Production one, with Barrie Osborne (producer), Mark Ordesky (executive producer), Andrew Lesnie (director of photography), John Gilbert (editor), Rick Porras (co-producer), Howard Shore (composer), and Jim Rygiel (visual effects supervisor). A lot more Americans in this group than the previous ones have been. I feel much more out of my depth with this one in terms of figuring out who's talking, but let's see what new stuff they have to say for FotR!

The sound from when Sauron explodes comes from a bunch of sounds they recorded both inside and outside ships in the harbor, as well as the sounds of WWII airplane propellers.

The scenes with Gollum in the prologue were actually some of the last shots they filmed for FotR.

The farmers around the area where they filmed Hobbiton would warn them when people would turn up who weren't supposed to be there, with cameras and whatnot, as well as warning them when planes or choppers would be overhead, so they could prevent (as much as possible) from footage leaking before the movie was released. That warms my heart :)

They used the analogy of a "shell game" when talking about all the different techniques they used to keep the proportions of characters correct with their different sizes. Because they would switch up the techniques between shots, it helped sell the overall effect, because you're not just always looking at a scale double or a bluescreen or what-have-you.

In the scene with Bilbo and Gandalf in the kitchen, they used forced perspective, with the table cut in half so that everything is small for Gandalf and the right size for Bilbo. When Bilbo pours the tea into the teapot, Gandalf handles a small lid on his side, putting it on a little rod that holds it in the right position so it looks like it's sitting on the teapot. Meanwhile, the actual teapot is on Bilbo's side so he can pour the water into it. Also, when Gandalf is first sitting down at the table and turning to get his legs underneath it, if you look closely you can see that when he bumps up against it, the half of the table closer to the camera jiggles a little, but the other half doesn't because it was actually some 5-10 feet away.

In the shot at the party that pans down from the fireworks and the tree, the actual party with all the dancing and everything was shot in a set, so they had to go back to the Hobbiton location (which had already been cleared of the set at that point, I think) and match up that shot to get the tree, and then they composited it together.

The direction for that shot of Minas Tirith when Gandalf goes to research the Ring was to make it look like "Constantinople in the morning." This may be my favorite part of this commentary :)

They needed to scan actors' faces so they could have their digital doubles to work with for certain shots. When they brought in Ian McKellen to scan his face, they said, "We just need to scan your face in a neutral position." He said, "Neutral for me or neutral for Gandalf?" And he demonstrated his own neutral expression, and when he switched to neutral Gandalf, he looked completely different, pursing his lips and furrowing his eyebrows and sucking his cheeks in more. Truly the sign of a gifted actor who knows how to ply his craft.

In the scene where Frodo and Sam are trying to sleep on the road for the first time, originally they were going to end with some sort of animal sniffing around them. First it was a deer, and they also tried a rabbit and maybe some other animals (possible fox appearance???). But that part didn't even make it into the Extended Edition.

Something I never thought about that they had to pay attention to was, because Orthanc is made of shiny material, they had to consider the color and quality of the light reflecting off it. So when they filmed the real location, they would take the camera and pan around the location, then print out stills and put them up around the miniature when they filmed that part of the shot, so they could get the right colors to match each shot they would composite over it, so it would look like both were in the same place. Now that's what I call attention to detail!

On the night they shot the little chase sequence with the Nazgul in the forest, it was actually raining off and on, even though you can't really see it in the movie. That made the ground very muddy, so the Hobbits actually had to be carried back to their first position for each new take so they wouldn't get too much mud on their feet and clothes.

To get the sounds of the trees' "voices" when the orcs in Isengard tear them down, they actually used several animal sounds like whales, moreso than sounds recorded from actual trees.

Bob Anderson, the swordmaster for the films, said they needed to have five copies of every sword for every actor every day they were going to be fighting with them, because that's how likely it is for them to be broken (since the swords actors use for hitting each other are lighter and not made like a real sword). But Richard Taylor wanted to find a way to make the swords more durable, because there are a lot of swords in these movies. So Weta developed a technique to help the stunt swords redistribute the shock from hitting them against each other. They took polyurethane, which Mark Ordesky notes is the same material as skateboard wheels, and they made a sort of sheath of that under the surface of the hilt. None of the swords they made like that ever broke.

The tree that gets thrown down into the chasm in Isengard had to be a miniature so they could get it high enough to drop it as far as they wanted to (and so they wouldn't have to cut down a huge tree). But they had to add little springs and things to make the branches bounce and jiggle properly, rather than just break off, as they would if you just made a little model tree. Little details like that really sell the scale.

In the Nazgul horseback chase scene, they cleared a path for the horses to safely run through the forest. But then they would also get branches and put them on the car or whatever vehicle had the camera, so it would look like they were pushing through more dense foliage, while still keeping the actors and horses safe.

The Council of Elrond was the final piece of the sound mix they had to finish for FotR, and it was down to a matter of hours. One of the things they mentioned having difficulty figuring out what to do with was the moment when Frodo sets the Ring down on the plinth. Originally, there was going to be a murmur of the crowd watching, but it didn't seem to have the gravitas and stunned awe necessary for that moment, so they had to play around with a lot of things before Peter Jackson was satisfied with it.

When Gimli smashes the Ring with his axe, John Rhys-Davies was actually only holding an empty handle, and the axe head was added digitally later so it could shatter.

Barrie Osborne (I think?) commented on something at least Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, especially Dom, started to do in order to make it more believable that the primary actors and the scale doubles are the same people. He noticed that their scale doubles tended to move and walk in a certain way (I assume partly because most of them were Little People, so their physique and proportions are a bit different), and so instead of leaving it up to them to mimic his movements, he started changing the way he moved to match them. That's just really cool.

Originally, they were going to do a bit of a flashback when Boromir asks Aragorn, "Have you ever seen the white tower..." etc. It would have been shot in the same place as the scene where Aragorn is visiting his mother's grave, and would feature Elrond talking to Aragorn about how he's the only one who can wield Anduril and how he needs to take his place as the king of Gondor.

For some of the close-up shots of Gimli in the scene where they first head into Moria, they actually had to use a double - not a scale double! an actual guy who was the same size as John Rhys-Davies! - because John had such a bad reaction to the facial prosthetics that he had to go a few days in between each time he put it on. But he'd had the prosthetics on the day before, and they didn't have time to wait until he could put them on again. So they had to find a double, put on the prosthetics and costume, and then John stood out of frame and spoke the lines, and the double mouthed the words along with him. I would never have guessed!

THANK YOU TO WHOEVER WAS TALKING AND I'M SORRY I COULDN'T RECOGNIZE YOUR VOICE FOR SURE, but someone was talking about "cinematic dark." In other words, how to light a scene so you can see everything that's happening even though you're in a place with hardly any light sources, like in Moria where the only light comes from the torch and Gandalf's staff most of the time. Instead of making it all really dark (*pointed stare at too many movies these days*), they shot it as if there is a source of light, but always very far away, like it's filtering through miles of rocky caverns or something. What that meant practically was that they would only light the characters in silhouette or from the side, never the front. So it would still give the impression that they're in darkness, but you don't have to strain at all to make out what's happening. They also desaturated the colors so everything looked muted, similar to how your vision kind of goes black-and-white in the dark.

One of the fundamental elements for the Moria goblin screeches was an opossum screech. There was some kind of opossum research facility in Wellington that they went to to record what became the foundation of the goblin sounds. Then they took them and re-recorded them in some WWII tunnels to get the right echoey reverb effect. And then for the sounds of them moving, they took sounds from insects like grasshoppers, as well as rattling seashells from the beach against the walls of the tunnels to get a scuttling sort of sound for when they come pouring out of holes in the ceiling.

You know that one shot where Legolas fires an arrow at a goblin archer and the camera follows the arrow all the way into his forehead? I always assumed that whole thing was all CG, but no! Even that had a practical element to it! They set up a camera on a sort of zip line with a bungee cord and sent it down as fast as it could go towards an actual stunt guy in costume! Now that's what I call above and beyond.

They shot a scene that didn't make it into even the Extended Edition of the Fellowship arguing about what they should do next after they leave Moria, with some members having misgivings about going to Lothlorien. I wish we could see that, even though I understand why they needed to keep things moving. They didn't mention if they actually shot this or if it was scrapped by the time they got that far, but there was also a mention of the entry to Lothlorien being much more frantic, as they're chased by orcs and then rescued by a sudden volley of Elven arrows.

There was also once a longer scene between Boromir and Frodo as they're waiting to see if Haldir will let them into Lothlorien. He tells Frodo a story of him getting over the death of one of his comrades. Um...I wanna see these extra scenes!!!

They wanted Lothlorien to feel ethereal and maybe almost slightly in a different universe, because of the Elves and especially Galadriel, who can see into hearts and minds. One of the ways they did that was by diffusing the light on the set so everything seems kind of dreamy. Another way they tweaked things was by bringing out the blues and edging them towards lavender. Yes, yes, Lothlorien is supposed to be golden, but after hearing the explanation about how lavender is actually one of the hardest colors to get to look right on film (the word used was "fragile") and to look good against skin tones, and therefore you don't see it very much in the movies, I can appreciate the subtle ways they tried to make Lothlorien feel distinct.

Originally, they were going to have a scene where the Fellowship goes through some rapids on the Anduin and get ambushed by orc archers. Ultimately, they decided they didn't need that as a story beat at that point, and it would have been very difficult to shoot anyway. Makes me wonder if that influenced the infamous barrel scene from the Hobbit movies, like they dug up some old plans for that....

Except for one wide shot where they used a scale double for Frodo, the entire confrontation between Boromir and Frodo was shot just with Sean Bean and Elijah Wood, no special effects, just strategic blocking and using the slope and different angles to their advantage to always make it look like Frodo is smaller than Boromir.

If I understood Howard Shore correctly, he was inspired to use a boy's choir for Boromir's death when he saw Boromir, after falling to his knees from the first arrow or two, looking up at Merry and Pippin. Boys singing at his death gives a sense of lost innocence, which is appropriate both to Boromir trying to take the Ring as well as to the lost innocence of losing the Hobbits. So it's not just a lament for Boromir, it's also his lament for (as he thinks in the moment, because he knows he's dying) failing the Hobbits.

The original mix for Boromir's death had all the sound effects at full volume, which made the moment even more brutal. Mark Ordesky was saying that he (and probably some others) was thinking it might be better if they pulled back on some of the sound and let the music be louder. Peter Jackson said, "Well, let's try it," and as soon as they turned down the volume, the entire room basically agreed immediately that's how they needed to do it. It's meant to sound and feel almost like you're sinking underwater as Boromir is dying, because that's how it would sound and feel for him.

Oh my goodness, further proof that studio execs shouldn't have a say in the story of a movie. New Line wanted the movie to end with Frodo and Sam paddling across the river, and then an Uruk bursts up from underwater and grabs Frodo, pulling him out of the boat. The Ring somehow comes off the chain, and the Uruk is so enamored with it that he ends up drowning while trying to grab it. Then Sam somehow gets Frodo (and the Ring) back into the boat. Thank goodness they came up with the much better ending we all know and love. Because the people actually involved with writing the movie and telling its story knew that the ending of FotR needs to be about the breaking of the Fellowship, about love and loyalty in the face of great evil. So that's why they went with the ending they did: Sam falls into the water and almost drowns, Frodo saves him, and that paves the way for the incredible emotional high of Frodo leaving the Fellowship, but Sam going with him. And just like Frodo is thinking about how Gandalf talked about how he was meant to find the Ring, Sam is thinking about how Gandalf told him not to leave Frodo. It all ties together so much better.

The last shot for the film was Boromir going over the waterfall. It was in the final cut of the movie just as a previs shot, and Barrie Osborne said he assumed it was going to be a CG effect or something. But finally, while Peter Jackson was in London working on scoring the film - so pretty late in the production - Barrie called him and asked when they were going to shoot that scene. Peter Jackson had forgotten about it! So Barrie had to shoot it, and since they didn't have the actors in New Zealand at that point, they had to get Weta to make a silicon dummy to shoot instead.

[deus-sema]

This meta by @conundrumoftime is worth a read or several reads. It made me re-evaluate Sauron and Galadriel's entire dynamic throughout the Third Age.

Up until now, I had been thinking of their push and pull equation from a perspective of Galadriel being on the defensive and holding Sauron back from seeing her after shutting the door for good.

But what I overlooked was that he was practically defenseless against her. He could never shut the door even if he wanted to. Even if her intrusions drove him to madness.

Not being able to see Galadriel forever would have hurt no doubt; not being able to put up any barriers against her would have been akin to salt on the already festering wound.

She could come in and leave any time she pleases to and he couldn't do the same to her. It was not even that his ties with her were completely severed but rather she held the strings in her hand. The more he saw of her and the more severe addiction would have become and it would have been mightily frustrating because he could only savour her company in little doses whenever she willed it and would have been left craving for more. Instead of leaving his side, she stayed and became a thorn that could never be dislodged. No wonder, his obsession to breach the walls she had put up, to see her and her thoughts intensified with each moment. No wonder he needed the One more than ever. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Sauron's attitude whenever Galadriel was concerned in the Third Age would be somewhat similar to Gollum's feelings whenever the One Ring was in picture.

It just makes their relationship more twisted and attractive. For millennia, the two of them were engaged in a game which hurt them both and,yet, proved to be delightful.

Perhaps when Galadriel finally rejects the One and realises that it's on a path to be destroyed, she is taken over by melancholy not only at the impending farewell that will have to be said to Middle Earth but also because the 'game' which she had been engaged in every day, every moment and got habituated to will stop forever. There will be no more trysts in the mind palace. No more will she hear his voice. No more can she reach out to him whenever she wants to.

Whenever I used to imagine the final scene of TRoP, I thought it would end with the door being shut. But picture this. Sauron has been defeated by the Last Alliance and weakened. He is trying to recuperate. During this moment, he gets an unexpected visitor. Someone whom he thought he would never see again. Whether she derides him or pities him is left to imagination. But she promises him it is not the last they have seen of each other.

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-down AU Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

Their planning session didn’t bear much fruit. Harrington had tried the water in his sink, and it came out a murky black. When he pulled snacks out of a hidden bottom in one of his dresser drawers, each unopened pack was full of mold and ash. 

They had no weapons, no game-plan, and the sky was still red. In short, they were fucked. 

The bickering was kept barely civil by the need to control their volume. 

“–just think we should consider scoping the place out!” Harrington was whispering but enunciating like a shout. “For all we know there’s good food at the store, or a way out of here right where we went in, or at least some water at the quarry!”

“You want to drink quarry water? That shit’s inedible even when there’s not toxic ash particles floating in it!”

“That’s not the point!” Harrington’s passing in front of him, raking his hand through his drooping hair. “We can’t just hide in my room forever. No one’s coming to save us!”

“Not forever, man.” Eddie replies, leg twitching from where he’s still sitting at the edge of Harrington’s bed. “But that thing’s still out there. I don’t know about you, but I think we should have a better idea for surviving it than just hoping it’s not out there!”

Harrington droops, shoulders, mouth, hair, and then drops to the carpet where he was standing. “Shit, okay, okay, you’re right.”

That same thrill goes through him at seeing Harrington beneath his feet. He squashes it down, scooching off the bed to sit across from Harrington on the floor. 

“Hey,” Eddie says, voice gone quiet and kind at the look of desolation on Harrington’s face. “We’re gonna figure this shit out, man.”

Harrington laughs, and it sounds remarkably like the laugh he always heard across high school hallways and cafeterias and gyms. Hollow. Eddie has the absurd urge to throw his arms around him. 

“Okay man, how about we start by raiding your closet. I don’t know about you, but my clothes reek like your rich-boy pool.”

Harrington scoffs, but dutifully levers himself off the floor to shuffle through his open closet. He throws a navy blue long sleeve in Eddie’s direction, followed by an awful pair of bleach-washed jeans, socks, and a pair of underwear. 

Then, like Eddie’s another jock and they’re in the locker room after practice, Harrington starts stipping with no regard to modesty. Eddie quickly turns his back from the sight and begins to do the same. His jeans jangle when he drops them on the carpet, chain and lunch box rattling when they hit the floor. Eddie holds a silent memorial for all the dignity he was about to lose.

He’s just pulled the slightly short pants on and buttoned the fly when he hears the little “huh,” Harrington lets out.

Quickly pulling the shirt over his head, he turns to see what Harrington’s on about. Luckily, the other boy still had his underwear on. Unluckily that was all he had on as he crouched down and stared at the ring cradled in his hand. Absurdly, Eddie thought of Gollum and had to bite his lip on the laugh in his throat.

“Whatcha got there, Stevie boy?”

Still crouched, Harrington held the ring up toward Eddie, clutched between pointer finger and thumb, looking like a man picking the worst possible moment to propose marriage.

“This yours?” he asks.

It was. “Where’d you get that?” he demands, snatching it from Harrington’s grasp.

“Fell out of my pants.”

Eddie looks down at the little ring in his palm. It was his Mom’s–the perfect size for only his littlest fingers. He remembers the pressure and sudden pain of his finger being wrenched out of where it was tucked into Harrington’s pants. He hadn’t even realized it was missing. 

Slipping it onto his other pinkie, Eddie murmurs a quiet “thanks,” cheeks blooming with color at the implications. 

Harrington doesn’t respond, but Eddie can feel his gaze on the back of his head as he walks over to Harrington’s horrific plaid curtains and twitches them back to look outside. There’s nothing to see but the same red sky, the same vine-covered pool, the same empty backyard they’d fled last night. 

Not wanting to stare at the hopeless sight anymore, Eddie bends down to pull the borrowed socks and his slightly damp boots back on his feet.

Eddie can hear the sound of clothes shuffling behind him, refusing to turn back around until the sound stops. But then Harrington gasps out, “Nancy?”

Eddie turns, expecting to see Harrington’s girlfriend miraculously in the room with them, but there’s nothing but Harrington spinning wildly around the room, looking for something Eddie can’t see. 

“Nancy?” he says again, louder this time, still at nothing.

Eddie’s sure he’s gone around the bend, and he’s going to have to put him down like old yeller, but then he hears it, “-would he have gone?” It’s quiet, muffled, but there.

“I don’t know, Nancy,” another voice replies, sounding exasperated. “Maybe he’s off with his parents vacationing in Europe or something. Who cares? Can we go before someone calls the police?”

“Barb?” Steve calls again, growing louder still. 

Eddie still can’t see anyone, but he calls out “Wheeler?” desperate to be heard.

“Will is missing, though!” Wheeler replies. Her voice sounds shrill—less like she’s panicking and more like she’s about ready to lose it and sock her friend in the jaw. “Do you really think that’s a coincidence?”

“Yes!”

“Nancy!” Steve calls again, this time loud enough to echo through the room.

Eddie’s yanked open the closed door to the Harrington’s stupid en-suite bathroom, like Wheeler and her mystery friend will suddenly appear in the bath tub, hanging out like the world is still normal. He’s even poked his head into the dark interior of the closet they’d slept in, but no dice.

Harrington is still screaming his head off to the two girl’s who are either playing the world’s cruelest prank or simply can’t hear him, when Eddie opens Harrington’s bedroom door.

It happens before he’s taken even one step out into the hallway. There’s that sound that makes his hair stand on end. Foxes chittering, television static trapped in an enclosed box and made horrific and animal. Eddie closes the door.

Harrington’s still screaming as it grows louder—grows closer.

“Harrington,” he snaps, voice cracking on each syllable.

He doesn’t stop screaming until Eddie’s backed up right into him, unable to look away from the door as he trips over Harrington’s feet. His shoulders are setadied.

Nancy’s still talking. Eddie can’t hear her over Harrington’s ragged breathing, over that thing chittering up the stairs.

“Munson, what’s—” He must hear it because he stops talking, and his nails really dig in, little pricks of pain that Eddie wants to lean back into.

He finds himself bargaining in his brain to some nebulous being he doesn’t believe in. He’ll let Harrington beat him bloody if that thing doesn’t come into this room. He’ll tell Wayne he loves him more. He’ll stop skipping P.E. He’ll go to church, god damn it! But none of it works. The sound grows louder.

Harrington’s forearm is suddenly in front of his sternum, pulling him along backwards. Eddie stumbles further into him, letting his weight drop onto Harrington fully. The bastard doesn’t even seem to notice, as he continues dragging Eddie bodily away from the door.

Wheeler’s friend is talking now. Eddie has no idea what she’s saying, only that her voice turns angry and shrill just as Harrington begins to slide his bedroom window up. Just as that horrific nightmare of a monster busts down Harrington’s bedroom door like it’s a cardboard playhouse.

He’s paralyzed, rooted to the spot as the thing opens its gaw and screams, twining horrifically with the mundanity of two invisible girls arguing. The blinds clack together as Harrington lunges through them, pulling Eddie out the window behind him. He can hear the strings holding them together snap–knows the sound intimately from all the guitar strings he’d broken while learning.

His back scrapes painfully on the top of the sill as he’s crammed through the opening. He doesn’t care what shapes Harrington configures his body into as long as he keeps pulling him away from that thing. 

His opinion holds as Harrington drags him bodily across the shingles of his roof. The monster lunges, stuck halfway through the too-small window, as Eddie’s hauled upright.

“Fucking, go,” Harrington yells, shoving him toward the sheer drop off the roof. He’s just considering jumping when he continues, somehow finding the energy to sound exhausted, “the gutters, man. Shimmy down. I do it all the time.”

He’s not looking at Eddie anymore, back turned like somehow keeping the monster in sight will stop it from swallowing them whole. 

Eddie eyes the gutter. It looks flimsy and too smooth to hold onto, but the horrific sounds emanating from Harrington’s bedroom make a compelling argument. He kneels, latches his hands into the loop of the gutter and swings himself off the roof. 

Vertigo almost takes him down, but Eddie manages to hang on, shuffling quickly down as he hears glass begin to splinter from above. 

Harrington’s foot catches him in the shoulder before he makes it all the way down. His fingers slip–he falls.

It’s not a long fall, but he lays, winded in the aftermath and watching Harrington leap and roll like some goddamn action hero, before he’s yanking Eddie up and dragging him blindly away from the house.

It’s quiet by the time they reach the woods. Eddie can’t hear Harrington behind him past his own ragged breathing. He only knows he’s there by the warm hand clutched tightly into his vest, like he’s a school child fond of running into the road. Eddie doesn’t mind.

He minds even less when, once fully ensconced in the trees, Harrington pushes him against a tree and pulls him down beside him. 

It’s reminiscent of those first moments in the closet. They’re close together, Eddie can’t catch his breath, and they’re both staring, horrified in front of them waiting for the big bad wolf to come eat them.

Harrington is holding his hand.

Part 4

[britcision]

Lord of the Rings “modern AU” but it’s only the hobbits and they only have social media and cellphones

It’s just a travel vlog

All four hobbits have their own by the end (although Frodo stops posting on his account half way through Two Towers and only shows up in the background of Sam’s videos to give a thumbs up when he declares a “fitness check”

Oh, and he posts hateful faux-nice comments on Lobellia Sackville-Baggins’s renovation videos on Bag End even after going west with elves)

(Pippin didn’t originally have his own he and Merry were vlogging together and he never actually makes his own account, but for 6 weeks after he and Gandalf split for Gondor he’s accidentally posting videos instead of video calling Merry just chatting about his day)

Gollum also has an account but the Ring keeps him from getting wifi until Bilbo takes it and that’s how he learns about Bag End

Saruman keeps trying to scry on Natter (listen I tried for food puns and hole puns and it only got worse) with his palantir but magic and tech don’t mix so he can’t receive the signals

And for some reason after Pippin touches the palantir the only channel Saruman or Sauron get is Bilbo’s Poetry Corner

The rest of the Fellowship originally assume the hobbits are keeping some kind of magical journal and play along good naturedly (and think it’s at most a cute game for kids)

Until after they rescue Merry and Pippin and Aragorn makes some kind of comment about hoping that Frodo’s doing well and Pippin cheerfully pulls up Sam’s latest vlog

(He’s been doing meal tips and food reviews and for about three weeks Gollum is in the background of every single one trying to add at least one random stick to the pot)

(About a week after that Gollum starts posting his own videos from the opposite direction while Sam makes his doing food reviews)

Only the hobbits can make the phones work though so Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are just in awe of this most mysterious magic

Elrond does have Bilbo’s old phone from when he came back through Rivendell after the Misty Mountain but he never made an account and can’t work out how to post but he does get spotty reception and can occasionally watch some videos

Gandalf always has the latest phone at least one version ahead of the newest release (he may/may not work in R&D) and he always posts from absurd locations and ridiculous dangers but he only rates the best and worst places to smoke pipeweed

All of the hobbits assume it’s just green screen

[thetownsendsw]

Today marks the premier of #Pathfinder’s Triumph of the Tusk Adventure Path, so I’d like to take a moment to discuss a relevant topic near and dear to my heart.

ORCS!

While Tolkien was drawing on some linguistic antecedents, Orcs in fantasy originate from The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings, where they’re brutish soldiers of various forces of evil.

Initially lacking redeeming quality, Orcs have become a darling of pop culture, their thuggish nature explored from many angles across TTRPGs, video games, comics, novels, and more.

Now, when you picture an Orc, you no doubt imagine something akin to the Warcraft or Warhammer franchises: statuesque, green skinned humanoids with protruding underbites and looming tusks, often locked into a primitive, itinerant lifestyle, eschewing technology beyond what they pillage from other races.

Interestingly, none of this is in Tolkien.

In Tolkien, “Orc” was essentially another word for “Goblin,” or perhaps unusually large Goblins. Far from statuesque, Gollum (a (former?) Hobbit) could easily be confused for one. The Uruk-hai, a new, stronger Orcish offshoot were described as Orcish in appearance but only as tall as a Man, not taller.

Tolkien’s Orcs are described as deformed, but nothing as specific as green skin or tusks is specifically mentioned (Tolkien saved in-depth sensory detail for trees, and occasionally beards).

Far from being savages, Tolkien’s Orcs were–in his grand Romanticist narrative–stand-ins for industrialization. They were destroying the forests to build grand weapons of war, and soot-covered Mordor evoked the smokestacks of 19th century london.

In many ways the conflict of LotR can be interpreted as Tolkien pitting the noble myths and tales he studied up against his real experiences in WWI.

(the thought amuses me of a firmly medieval fantasy setting, except when we zoom in on the Orcish Badlands they’re all shelling each other from the trenches)

But while none of these traits are in Tolkien, there is a source where they are central.

The Green Martians, or Tharks, first appeared in A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published in All-Story Magazine from Feb-July 1912, well before any of the kids Tolkien decided to tell a fairy tale to were born.

The Tharks are described as 15 foot tall nomadic savages, favoring mighty beasts and weapons salvaged from the more civilized races of Barsoom. They have green skin and tusks, as well as six limbs (interestingly, the middle limbs are described as functional as either crude arms or secondary legs, but art always just depicts four arms)

Culturally, the Tharks are clearly meant as extensions of the Apache raiders encountered in the early chapters of the book set in Arizona; i.e. some California ranch-owner’s idea of wasteland savages. Nomadic, inhuman raiders redeemable only when breaching their primitive traditions.

The parallels are almost uncanny, and I’ll admit I’m honestly not sure where the crossover occurs. Early editions of D&D–another driver of fantasy trends–depict orcs as pig-people, which is probably how tusks became so iconic. They later added gray skin, which persisted officially until the current edition.

Somewhere between there in ‘74 and Warhammer in the early 80s is when the pseudo-Barsoom look took over in broader culture, and at this point there’s no getting around it. Even the more recent Tolkien film adaptations can’t entirely escape the expectation of modern Orcishness.

Turning back the clock a bit, Tolkien notably was never entirely sure where Orcs came from. His first idea was that they were molded from clay by Morgoth, a dark mirror to Adam, but being a Catholic at heart, he disliked the idea of Evil being a creative force.

He flip-flopped for the rest of his life, whether Orcs were corrupted men/elves/hobbits, uplifted beasts, even (according to one post I saw) soulless bodies remotely piloted by demons. He could never quite square the need for unfailingly evil mooks with his own feelings on Good & Evil.

Personally, I find particular resonance in the parallel between what D&D used to call an “always chaotic evil” race and the very Catholic concept of Original Sin. Was Tolkien merely dancing around the idea that the Orcs only needed to be Saved?

I can’t say what Tolkien would think of modern Orcs, either their merging with an earlier, American space alien, or our attempts to humanize what was supposed to be fundamentally inhuman. But I think his insecurity speaks to the same source as our fascination.

Who among us hasn’t struggled with what it means to be good? Or to be evil? And if we are made to be evil, what does it mean to strive against that purpose or to surrender to it? Can we abandon the precepts of predestiny? Or do we reject that they were ever there?

Stare deeply into that Jungian shadow and tell me…

Is it green? And do you want it to be?

[perplexingly]

I've been wanting to write a description of the Watermill Theatre's Lord of the Rings musical for these who were unable to see it, so I'll mention some of the things that stood out to me.

Also first of all, I saw that @emeraldskulblaka was kind enough to compile a masterpost about the musical, sharing the available videos and audios here

Now to the Watermill production:

The audience was encouraged to come 30min before the start of the show to celebrate Bilbo's 111 birthday.

During that time the actors were playing music, talking with the audience, playing games with the audience, I almost got hit in the face as Gimli in front of me failed to catch a ring that was thrown at him : D I saw there are some recordings of this part around, eg:

While still outdoors, the play started seemlessly with Bilbo's iconic birthday speech. After his disappearing act (in a puff of smoke), we moved indoors and while the audience was settling down, Frodo sat on stage all sad perusing letters

This stage is very tiny but they used it in a clever way; eg. there were moments when, to show the distance, the actors would say their lines behind the audience on the upper ring. They would also utilise the doors at the center stage or the ladders on the sides to climb on. The lighting also gave each scene a lot of character:

Also each actor doubled as a musician, often playing on the edges of the stage but still in full view, giving this interesting illusion of environment.

I think my favourite moment of using actors as parts of the environment was during Sam and Frodo's Now and for Always duet: once they started singing, Bilbo came to sit on the edge, in the shadow, just looking at them, and with each verse a new hobbit/musician came behind, hanging out in the shadows and giving this dreamy idea of Shire. And when Sam fell asleep, there was Rosie coming a bit forward to caress him.

Another such wonderful moment was near the end, when Frodo could go no longer and Sam helped him. The earlier situation when Sam fought off Shelob with Eärendil's light reminded the viewer of Galadriel's - and the elves - indirect help. And when Sam put his arms around Frodo to guide him, quietly, in the shadows around them illusions of elves appeared to show them the way and to catch them when they stumbled.

Speaking about the plot point - act 1 encompassed the first of the trilogy while the second act the other two. To achieve this condensation in the second act, most characters that were not directly related to the fellowship were either removed or merged with other, eg. Denethor and Theoden were combined into one, with the Rohan/Gondor politics removed altogether. But honestly, I thought it was the smarter choice, as we get the time to get attached to the main cast.

One more thing I'd like to mention were the practical effects. While ents were just an off-stage voice, when they were talking there were leafs falling down from the ceiling. But the most impressive was Shelob, which was a giant puppet with real-like leg movement, mostly in shadow except for the reflective eyes. I saw that there's an early test for Shelob posted on Instagram:

Also, I talked about Gollum in an earlier post, but I just wanted to make a quick illustration of the adorable moment between Gollum and Bilbo that I saw in the epilogue:

[thefallenangelsgang]

I'm losing my fucking mind

Or: I just saw Lord of the Rings the Musical at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and my brain chemistry has irreversibly changed

I'm too genuinely scrambled at the moment from travel to make a solid post (I am multiple states away from Illinois and I hate city driving) but I cannot shake the life-changing experience that was.

SPOILERS AHEAD

(Spoiler free tldr: story is changed sometimes severely to make a sub-3hr runtime or to simplify, but the message doesn't get completely lost. Tolkien fan approved)

First issue I can see everyone having is how much the story changes because it does change a lot. Rohan and Gondor being merged is probably the most glaring. I think it works because the show is more focused on the Hobbits (specifically Frodo and Sam). Personally I can look past it. My one issue is the missing Sam monologues (mount doom is a rather swift sequence, I'd have liked to see Sam give his devotion speech and his speech about the shire while waiting to die) those would have made insane songs but alas. The ending still was a gut punch though so it's more a personal preference thing.

First thing that blew me away was the technical aspect. The lighting and set design was GORGEOUS and EVOCATIVE. There were multiple times lighting alone drew me to tears.

The puppetry is immaculate. The nazgul chase is singularly some of the most beautiful choreo I've seen and I'm a slut for puppetry

The cast play all of the instruments live on stage, sometimes while doing choreography (nothing will prepare you to see Legolas holding a fucking trumpet or Boromir strapped into a goddamn accordion)

The costuming is more accurate to the original editions' illustrations which I found endlessly charming. One difference is, for safety (probably OSHA), all the hobbits (and Gollum) wear Sandals. This is never discussed. I love that.

BOROMIR IS KILLED BY HIS OWN SWORD WHICH I CANNOT EXPRESS HOW PERFECT THAT IS NARRATIVELY

GOLLUM PLAYED BY TONY BOZZUTO IS NEARLY INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM ANDY SERKIS

(I am not joking about this. Somehow he has mastered Andy's physicality and voice work. It truly was a sight to behold.)

Saruman/Elrond's actor (dressed as a hobbit) was hanging out in our section during preshow and was having a grand old time.

Bilbo and Frodo were in the main audience bothering people. Frodo was playing a stick and ring game and got absolutely shown up by some 10 year old he invited to play.

The Entmoot took literally 2 minutes (the way I had to stop from HOWLING at that)

I was SOBBING at the end, like actually.

Somehow this production managed to keenly make me feel the ending of Frodo leaving for the Grey Havens more than the movies did. The Irony of Frodo leaving being both a hopeful prayer that there is a place where people bound with trauma and wounds too deep to heal can live in peace without pain and also a grim acceptance that sometimes people cannot recover was STARK

Frodo and Sam really push the narrative of this show up until the end and it hits HARD. God bless this cast with steady work, they all deserve it.

[mushroomates]

the fellowship at the beach:

aragorn: knows exactly where to go for peak waves and sun. it’s not crowded and quite frankly the fellowship is unsure if they’re technically trespassing but it’s a good enough time for them not to care. likes to set up canopies and umbrellas for everyone then disappears for like 2 hours on a walk/hike.

boromir: likes to grill/camp out. he enjoys large bond fires and roasting marshmellows. during the day he likes to do beach volleyball or swim in the ocean, a very physical dude. enjoys activities,,, has to be doing something.

merry: likes to fly kites with boromir on the dunes. not a huge fan of water, enjoys playing games and building large sandcastles. he and pippin like to turn gandalf into a sand mermaid when the can, as well as dig a giant moat with gimli.

pippin: gets sunburnt everytime. has so much sand in his hair. gets it everywhere. is a walking disaster- has lost several hats, sunglasses, beach toys, wallets, keys, phones,,,, everything pippin has in his possession when he comes to the beach he will no longer have when he leaves. this also includes the many stickers, magnets and keychains he swipes from nearby shops for keepsakes. wants to rent a jetski but no one will go with him.

frodo: likes to wade in the water and collect pretty seashells. brings them back to his friends to show them off. finds rocks in all shades and sizes, brings samwell heart shaped rocks as well as any cool colored ones that remind him of sam. gandalf once asked why frodo never brought him any rocks, in which frodo started collecting all grey rocks and bringing them to gandalf. funnily enough, most rocks are some shade of grey, and gandalf got rather sick of pebbles being chucked at him.

sam: has many towels and lots of sunscreen. very prepared with the snacks, brings sandwiches and drinks for everyone! likes to hang out in the shade and walk along the shore. enjoys the touristy shops along the coast, especially likes the salt water taffy and keychains. laughs loudly at all the gimmicky tourist traps,,,, always goes in/falls victim to them.

legolas: is weird about sand,,,,, cannot have it between him and something else. ex: between the shoes, clothing, hair. has to be directly on him or nothing at all (walking barefoot) once they are even within proximity the beach he jumps out immediately charges towards the water. likes to push people in/splash them.

gimli: no shoes no shirt no problem,,, immediately in just swim trunks as soon as they pull up to the parking lot. enjoys building massive sand castles with the hobbits as well as digging deep trenches to trap their compatriots in. they cover it with a towel, someone falls in and nearly breaks their neck- good times.

gandalf: brings a book to read, likes to chill in the shade and listen to the waves. falls asleep more often then not, wakes up barricaded in sand or made into a sand sculpture. will disappear suddenly and come back with ice cream. no one knows where he got it. he does not share or tell anyone where he gets this mysterious ice cream either.

bilbo: is reading with gandalf. he brings some iced tea and good sunglasses and just relaxes. he is a active people watcher, likes to eavesdrop as well as note and speculate on interesting figures. likes to do some light journaling/writing as well.

gollum: is fishing. lurks in the bay and attempts to catch fish with his bare hands, then proceeds to immediately eat them raw. also chases seagulls- will chath and eat those as well. he is, unfortunately, quite successful in this. he is also no longer allowed in or around several public beaches.

[corndog-patrol]

ranking hobbit media by how sexy thranduil is okay go

first up we have 1977 rankin bass thran. and what a fucking mess he is.

they made him bald??? why?? he’s an elf where are the beautiful locks?? you can’t tell me that smidgen of hair on the side is beautiful elf locks. also that hunched posture is terrible for his back. 0/10

2003 Hobbit Game

okay this one earns some points for nostalgia but he is so fucking polygonal. that gamecube crust just DESTROYS the quality of his... everything. he does look a bit better in the cutscenes tho

kind of a serve. 5/10

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II (2006)

cant even find any good images of him from this game. he looks okay? ive never played it. 3/10

2012-2014 Peter Jackson Hobbit movies

okay this is where we peaked as a sexy thranduil society. lee pace thranduil is amazing and his absolutely fucked characterization can be overlooked cuz the aesthetics are literally peak ✨✨✨✨✨ Perfect In Every Way 10/10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Hobbit LEGO game (2014)

not really sure how to rank this on the sexy scale considering he’s a LEGO but he’s still based on the lee pace thran so that gives him some points. the  best part of this game was smashing shit as sauron after beating it. 7/10

lord of the rings online (LOTRO) (idk when they added him, it looks like 2018 but i have no clue if that’s really true)

The combat in this game is fun but why are half of the quests to fetch animal hides? anyway this thran looks weird, like an older white guy who doesn’t believe in tipping servers. 3/10

finally the new gollum game (2023)

he just looks off? the crown is cool but there’s just TOO much happening with this design. also the game sucks shit. 4/10

and that’s it. they should put more thranduils in media so i can rate them.